Stylish spa hotel with award-winning restaurant near Cambridge
BookMember since 2020
Good, but an unfortunate comedy of errors
stayed: February 2024
The hotel is nice and out-of-the-way so that it has an "away from it all" sort of atmosphere. The room we had (a four-poster bedroom) was lovely and well appointed, with a coffee machine, spa bath, ironing board and iron. Our package included a spa treatment (for two) and a 3-course meal in the hotel restaurant which we had booked for the first night. On the whole the stay was good, but there were too many avoidable (as well as unavoidable) issues that prevented it from being a great stay.
Issues.
Upon arrival both room cards that we were issued failed to work, and so had to be reprogrammed back at reception.
There were no instructions on how to use the coffee machine nor the spa bath. We found instructions on-line for the coffee machine, but could not work out what the coffee pods were due to the vast array of pods available. A simple guide, along with a "these are the coffee pods we have supplied you" would have been really helpful. As for the spa bath - we could not get it to work. It wasn't until the morning of departure that we noticed a "spa bath" labelled power switch on top of the skirting board in the bedroom that was switched off.
The bathroom had quite a few ladybirds in it. As nice as these creatures are, it was not so great to have one drop on your head whilst showering.
The weekend was plagued by power cuts that affected not only the hotel and Spa, but the whole village. We were only 10 minutes in to our Spa treatment when the power cuts began, with the treatment ultimately being cancelled due to the power issues and a fault on the machine. The Spa staff tried to rebook us but they could only fit us in on the Sunday when we were checkng out which was not convenient. The power cuts also meant that our 3-course dinner was potentially not available. The answer from the hotel on what to do if there was no dinner, was to order a takeaway - which wasn't all that helpful. Luckily the dinner did go ahead and it was excellent.
There appeared to be a shortage of staff on during the weekend. When you rang down to reception from your room no one answered, so it was quicker to go down to reception/Bar and try catch a member of staff there.
There was a fire alarm at 2am on one evening, which lasted for about a minute - so not long enough to evacuate, but long enough to make it tricky to get back to sleep. This may well of been due to the power cuts.
The power cuts ultimately affected our enjoyment of the hotel stay. Whilst we appreciate that these were out of the hands of the hotel, some sort of goodwill gesture towards the guests would have been appreciated. We know other guests asked for a refund/part refund due to the power cuts and the inconvenience, but the duty manager said she could not do anything about that.
We would try the hotel again, to experience it and Spa fully powered!
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